Books

I'm reading Stephen F. Cohen's The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin. For whatever reason, I've been somewhat fascinated by the USSR lately, and now I'm dipping my toes in to the Gulag system. This book tries to give some context to the survivors of Gulags and their lives after imprisonment. I find it interesting, though the book mostly speaks in generalities in stead of telling more involved stories of the survivors. Funnily enough, this book mentions a book I read some time back, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, many times and gives some welcome context as to how it was released and why it was so important. I'm really liking this so far.

Reading Russian history is emotionally taxing. The more I read, the more it seems to me that Russian history is just a steady march from one national trauma to another. It's no wonder Russian culture is the way it is; the Russian people rarely catch a break.

When I was a child, the USSR seemed imposing, impregnable and eternal. Now, with age, I realize it didn't really even last a lifetime. Maybe this cognitive dissonance is why I'm trying, in my own way, to understand what happened to it and in it, and why it fell.